Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free by Randy Henderson Page A

Surely you can understand that?”
    Ah, bat’s breath.
    â€œWhat do you want then?”
    â€œI—I don’t know. There’s got to be something I can do to make amends.”
    â€œThe mana drug that Grayson was using. You created that, right?”
    Heather blushed. “Yes. I did a lot of terrible things. I know.”
    â€œWell, that is what you can do for starters. The Arcanites are still using the drug. The feybloods need a cure for the addiction. Do you have one?”
    â€œNo,” Heather said.
    â€œJust no? Can’t you create one?”
    Heather looked away. “I—something else. Name something else for me to do.”
    â€œWhat? Why?”
    â€œToo many people in power want to use that drug now. If I provided the cure to it, if I took that weapon away from them, they would make sure I was exiled or worse, no matter what other good I did. Please, just ask me to do something else.”
    â€œMerlin’s beard, Heather! Seriously? This is exactly the kind of thinking that got you in trouble in the first place. You need to just stand up and do the right thing.”
    Heather’s face flushed. “Says the overgrown boy who wanted to run away from his responsibilities and make video games.”
    â€œBut I didn’t,” I said, feeling my own neck and face heating up. “I stayed.”
    â€œBecause you didn’t have much choice.”
    â€œThere’s always a choice,” I said, feeling like a hypocrite indeed. “Just like you have a choice now.”
    â€œGee, thanks, Afterschool Special, now I realize I should have Just Said No.”
    â€œWhat the hell, Heather? You came to me. Do you want my help or not?”
    Heather’s eyes suddenly overflowed with tears. “I’m sorry. I’ve been running, hiding, I don’t know what to do, I just don’t want it to end like this.”
    â€œThen make the cure for the drug, Heather. Please.” I stepped toward her, reached out to hold her arm, to reassure her.
    Her hand jerked up with the water gun, and she shot me in the chest.
    â€œWha—!”
    Numbness spread out from my chest, and I fell limp to the ground. I wasn’t frozen, it just felt like every muscle in my arms, legs, and face had gone to sleep.
    â€œI’m sorry!” Heather said. “I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry.” She looked around her as if afraid enforcers, or worse, would pounce on her any second. “I can’t make the cure to the feyblood drug. I’m not even sure it’s possible. But if you think of anything else I can do to make amends, to earn your forgiveness, then just … hang some shoes on that silly rope thing of yours.” She waved up at the rope pulley that ran from my bedroom window over the hedge to Dawn’s house, a way to exchange objects and messages when we were teens.
    The pins and needles of waking limbs began in every muscle at once. Oh man, recovering was going to suck worse than a Scrappy Doo movie.
    â€œMmffmumff,” I said as Heather turned away, a bit of drool running down my cheek. Heather faded into the shadows.
    Somehow, I doubted she would heed my eloquent final words.
    It took several minutes of painful writhing for the effects of the potion to wear off, as I made hopeless attempts to find just the right position where my muscles could wake up with minimal pain. When I could at last move without wincing, I climbed to my feet and stumbled into the safety of the house and its protective wards.
    Pete poked his head out of the kitchen, lowering a half-eaten chicken drumstick from his mouth. “Hi Finn!” he said, then gave a guilty look down at the drumstick. Our family had been raised vegetarians, as most necromancer families were—one of the side effects of being able to sense the residual spiritual energy in anything that once had a nervous system. But Pete’s new wolf nature was less